


Damsel

by BlackCatula



Category: Super Mario Bros.
Genre: Damsels in Distress, Femininity, Gen, Princes & Princesses, Strong Female Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-06
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-19 10:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4743116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackCatula/pseuds/BlackCatula
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Looks like Princess Peach has been captured yet again, and who is it that must take up the reigns to save her? That's right, it's up to Princess Peach! To save herself! From her kidnappers! Who has time to wait around for Mario, anyway (bless his soul, but really, why would anyone just sit around in a cell for days and days and days, waiting for someone else to do all the work like that???).</p><p>Join Princess Peach on an epic 8-chapter escape mission to find out who kidnapped her (and why!) in this fun twist on the old classic Damsel In Distress formula! (She's a damsel, she's in distress, she can handle it!)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Escape From Iggy

"Well, this certainly is a fine mess..." Peach remembered thinking as she sat up, one hand tenderly pressed to her head. That had been the last thought to pass through her head before everything had gone dark. She blinked her eyes a few times as they adjusted to take in her new surroundings.

Musty gray walls surrounded her on all sides, and the stale smell of dust and moss hung in the air. In the gloom she could make out a series of black bars along one of the walls. The floor was nothing but a darker, danker gray, a mess of brickwork with a small drain in the center. She herself was lying on a rock-hard wooden bench jutting out of the wall. She didn't even want to think about the bucket sitting in the corner. Her loud pink dress and brilliant blonde hair provided the only color in the entire room, illuminated only by a single torch glowing softly from beyond the black bars.

A prison cell. So it's true then, I was kidnapped...again. What a fine mess indeed!

She pulled herself up onto her feet, brushed the crumbs of dirt off her dress, and stretched her arms wide. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure up as much memory as her brain could account for.

She was sure she had been outside...in the garden, perhaps? Yes, the turnips had been thirsty that day. And she remembered waving to Toadsworth as he watched from the window. And then what? Oh...right. All in one instant there had been a sudden crackling sound, followed by a bout of giddy, almost maniacal laughter, and then everything had gone dark. The old sack trick, she surmised.

Kidnapped...again. She sighed aloud, wondering why she should ever have expected any different. Getting regularly snatched up for nefarious, harebrained purposes was all in the contract for a Princess, right there in the fine print. Things had always been done this way. Still, it wasn't a pleasant thing to deal with.

And something else had started bothering her now: WHO had kidnapped her? The usual suspect wasn't the sack-carrying type, and most definitely wouldn't giggle fiendishly. Roar and gloat, maybe. But absolutely no giggles. It must have been one of the younger ones. They'd been involved in shenanigans like this before…

...but more importantly, WHY had they done it?

She found her thoughts interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps. They were tiny and made little pap pap pap noises on the stone bricks.

"Dinner time, prisoners!" a particularly nasal voice called out. "Hope you're hungry for a nice bowl of slop soup!"

Peach watched as a green-shelled koopa troopa plodded its way over to her cell, carrying a single wooden bowl of lumpy cream-colored mush. There was an indignant huff as the guard knelt down to reach the tiny meal latch at the bottom of the iron bar door.

"...that's dinner?" Peach asked, eyeing the slop uncertainly.

"You're lucky you even get this much!" the koopa replied snidely. "Most prisoners don't get such royal treatment!"

"Most prisoners?" she said, raising an eyebrow as she peered through the bars down the corridor. "I could be mistaken, but it sure looks to me like I'm the ONLY prisoner down here!"

The guard snorted and wagged a finger at her. "Don't get smart with me, Princess! Th-the boss has just been a very busy bee lately and doesn't have even a lick of time to waste on prisoners!"

Peach crossed her arms. "Then why kidnap me?"

"Not telling!" he grunted, shoving the bowl through the gap with his foot before slamming it shut again. "Now eat up! We wouldn't want you to go hungry during your stay here, would we?"

Peach remained silent for a moment, studying the look on the guard's face. There was something in that tone that struck a certain chord, and a little bell of recognition rang somewhere in the back of her mind. Pity? No, that wasn't it...but something about the way the words were grumbled definitely sounded off-key.

She stuffed the thought away for now, took a deep breath, and regained her usual composure. "Very well, then. What is shall be."

"That's what I thought!" came the gruff reply. "And I'm gonna be standing watch right over here, so don't get any funny ideas!"

Peach took the bowl and returned to her place on the cold, hard bench. Even with the soft pillowy down of her dress beneath her, the bench was thoroughly uncomfortable and all but hurt to sit on. She sighed and stared into the lumpy gravy in front of her. It was definitely going to be a long night…

I wonder if anyone's taken notice of my absence yet, she mused, twirling the spoon in the sludge. What am I saying, of course they'll have noticed! Everyone in the kingdom keeps such close tabs on me, if I'd even been missing for even ten minutes, they'd all be in a panic! It must be absolute chaos back at the castle…

I wonder if anyone's summoned Mario yet…

"Hmph!" she hmphed, stabbing at a potato-shaped lump. Poor Mario. I hope he wasn't busy. I hope my kidnapping didn't interrupt a much-needed vacation or anything. He must always feel so put out, having to drop everything just to come and rescue me at a moment's notice. It must be such an inconvenience being a hero!

Shhh, she told herself, sitting up straight again. It's not your fault that you got kidnapped. These circumstances were not any that you could control. Mario will understand, even if this is a major inconvenience to him...he MUST understand. Surely he's used to this sort of thing by now...

She raised her spoon and took a whiff of the slop, making a sour face. Still...sitting in a cell with nothing to do but eat slop and count the ruffles on her dress was not something she was prepared to sit through again. Not after last time. In fact, she wasn't even worried about her rescue...rescue always came in the end. Rather, she found herself more worried that she'd be spending several days in utter, mind-numbing boredom. Unable to attend to the needs of her subjects, or to keep an eye on the growing gardens, or to plan and cater a house party for her friends...she wouldn't be able to do a single productive thing at all!

How unacceptable!

She angrily jammed the spoon into her mouth, suppressed a gagging noise (if only because gagging on food was completely impolite), quickly swallowed, and dropped the spoon back into the slop, trying hard not to cough or convulse in the process. Her long hours spent training in the art of manners were paying off.

"Whatsa matter, your Royal Pink-ness?" came the voice of the guard, along with the sound of a newspaper page being turned. "You swallow down the wrong tube?"

This slop tastes like glue and old rubber, she didn't say out loud.

"I think this dinner could use some salt," she replied, as politely and someone could through clenched teeth.

"Salt?!" the sound of crinkling paper, followed by an angry pap pap pap as the koopa marched up to the cell door. "Are you suggesting that our gourmet prison slop is anything less than the BEST slop you've ever tasted?!"

The princess blinked a few times, genuinely startled by his reaction. "...I'm sorry, I haven't tasted much slop to begin with...but...no?"

"Unbelievable!" he shouted, tossing two tiny turtle hands in the air. "You've disrespected the slop, which in my book means you've disrespected CHEF HIMSELF! Amazing!"

"Please don't shout," Peach said calmly, putting a hand over her ear. "I surely didn't mean disrespect, but this slop--".

"Is the BEST slop this side of the plains!" he interrupted, now pacing back and forth with agitation. "You're in dangerous waters now, Princess, ho-ho! You've insulted a Master Chef! You'd better hope he never hears about this one, oh-ho-ho indeed!"

Peach stared back at the guard, not entirely sure how to advance the conversation from here. But something inside her, whether a sudden burst of bravado or the mysterious and sly grin of cunning, compelled her to keep pushing it.

"...yes," she finally said, rising to full height, shoulders out and chest puffed. "This dish is...incomplete. I feel it needs something a little more before I'll admit that it's the best prison slop I've ever tasted."

"You are downright BEGGING for trouble, missy!" he warned, pointing a finger at her.

"What else can you do to me?" she asked, a bit more haughtily than she'd meant to. "I'm already a prisoner here, aren't I?"

"...y-y--why I--oh, oh-HO! You just wait! You're in for it now! I'm gonna go tell the Chef on you!"

With a quick scamper of his feet and gleeful conviction in his eyes, the guard dashed off down the dim hallway, pap pap pap. Peach finally exhaled, deflating from the waist up. She set the bowl aside on the prison bed and put a hand to her forehead.

Why did I think that was a good idea? What compelled that reaction from me? I'm not royalty in here, I'm a prisoner! I have no right to talk back like that!

...but why shouldn't I?, the voice in the back of her mind piped up. I was kidnapped, right? So it must have been for a reason...and THAT must mean that I'm meant to be kept alive and unharmed! So what else CAN they do to me? They really can't do a thing to me just for making a dinner request! I may be a captive, but that doesn't mean I'm not anything less than the Princess I always will be!

Her thoughts got ahead of her and disappeared as soon as the footsteps came back. The pap pap pap was accompanied this time by a slower, more deliberate fump fump fump sound. As the guard slowly reemerged from the shadows, leering back at the princess and making cutthroat motions, he was followed closely by a very large pink mole sporting a puffy white toque at the crown of his head and a stained white apron around his waist.

"This," the guard said, in a vinegar-sour voice, "Is our Master Chef, Cook!"

"Yeah," Cook mumbled, staring at the floor. His expression largely suggested that he already regretted having stepped away from his kitchen, even if only for this minute.

"Now," the guard continued, "You're gonna tell Cook, who, I will point out, is holding a very pointy and very meaty fork in one hand, exactly what you told me about the slop that he made especially for you."

Peach eyed the fork in his hand dubiously, and took careful notice of the awkward way he avoided eye contact back with her. Again, something inside was itching for her to lock on to his troubles and pry that armor apart.

"Go on!"

She blinked, rejoining the present, and cleared her throat before speaking. "Hello, Cook. I feel like this prison slop isn't living up to its full potential, and I think it could use some salt."

"Recipe didn't call for salt," he muttered, scratching the back of his head.

"Well, that doesn't mean you CAN'T use salt," she replied patiently, holding the bowl out through the bars toward him. "You can deviate from a recipe if you think it might enhance the flavor!"

Cook paused, then actually DID make eye contact, raising a brow in the process. "...you can do that?"

"You can do anything! Meal-making is all about experiments!"

She paused long enough to meet his gaze directly, then added: "...at least, that's how I cook."

A moment of silence passed as Cook unwrapped this new parcel of information. The guard impatiently tapped his foot, waiting on Cook's response. The mole slowly turned his head back toward the kitchen, then suddenly snapped back to Peach.

"...you said experiments? Like potions and science and magic?" He raised the fork and pointed it directly at her. "YOU know how to do all that?"

Peach's heart beat faster under her serene, royal expression as she tried not to look at the stringy blob of unidentified meat dangling from the end of the fork. "Of course! I'd be happy to offer some cooking tips, if you're interested...".

Cook scratched the top of his head with his fork. "...I dunno if the boss would like that."

"You're darn tootin' he wouldn't!" the guard jumped in. "Now come on, Cook, make her pay for her insolence!"

"I really don't want to make her pay for anything," Cook said, meekly. "I just wanna cook things. I mean, that's even my name, isn't it?"

"Again, I'd be happy to teach you!" Peach added.

"Don't let her trick you, Cook, it's a trick! Don't get tricked!"

"I'm not gonna get tricked!" Cook shouted, slamming his fist into the wall.

There was a pause as Cook pulled his hand back and steadied his breathing. "Why you always gotta like I'm super dumb and everyone's gonna take advantage of my gullibility?"

"Cook..." the koopa sighed, putting a hand to his forehead. "Cook, Cook, Cook...your job is to make your gourmet recipes for prisoners, and sometimes to ram that meat fork into their guts when they don't follow the rules. And you're supposed to leave all that hard thinking stuff to ME!"

"But…".

"No buts! I won't have you gettin' tricked by some floofy pink bimbo in a cage!"

"But I'm NOT gonna get tricked!" Cook wailed. "She's just gonna TEACH me some tricks!"

He turned back to Peach, who, underneath her pleasant aura of charm and grace, had been eyeing the guard with a dagger-edge stare ever since 'floofy pink bimbo'. "Can you teach me to be a better chef, Prisoner Princess?"

Peach smiled, and opened her mouth to reply, only for the impertinent koopa's voice to spit out and interrupt first. "Cook! You'd better start listening to me THIS INSTANT, or I'll--ghyhk!"

As if by pure reflex, the moment Cook's beefy fist came down against the guard's shell, he curled up and retracted inside it, falling to the ground in the most comical flailing flop Peach had ever been ashamed of snickering at. She deftly put a hand up to her mouth, pretending to cough as she watched his shell wobble back and forth idly in the aftermath.

"You're coming with me, prisoner," Cook said resolutely, unlocking the door with the guard's own keys. "This might be my only chance to ever learn something. Nobody else around here's ever gonna cook anything, so SOMEBODY oughtta be good at it, right?"

"That's a very noble sentiment, Cook!" Peach replied with a smile as she stepped out of her cell. Beneath it all, her heart was already racing with the exciting prospects of escape, and her mind was eager to catch up, highlight exits and routes and vantage points. She hadn't at all planned on getting this far in the first place, and she knew she'd need to think fast and think smart if she was ever going to make good on her plan.

But the most important aspect of acting quickly is the ability to remain calm and wait patiently for opportunity to show its face.

With a nod and a grunt, Cook took hold of her wrist quite firmly and led her down the corridor, into what she could only guess was the kitchen. Much like her cell, it was drab and gray, two sizes too small, and smelled like old salad. Peach pursed her lips once or twice, glancing around disapprovingly before turning to again face Cook, who gestured to his bulky scrap-metal oven.

"Well?" he said, still holding on to her wrist. "What do I have to do cook good?"

Peached cleared her throat and tried, tactfully, but also unsuccessfully, to free her arm. "Well...first I think you'll need to let go of me."

"Can't do that," he replied, shaking his head. "Guard said you were a tricky one, so I gotta make sure you don't escape, or I'LL be the one that ends up in the pot!"

"I promise I won't give you any trouble," she insisted, tugging slightly. "Even if I tried to run, I'm sure you'd catch me in the blink of an eye. I couldn't escape even if I tried!"

Cook's face scrunched up in thought for a moment, but he still didn't sound entirely convinced.

Peach sighed, took a deep breath, then lifted her head back up. "Listen Cook, I'm going to be stuck here in this dungeon, probably for a long time. Who knows how long it'll take before Mario shows up? And I don't know about you, but sitting in a cold, dark dungeon for days and days on end with nothing to do but sing children's counting songs and play rock-paper-scissors with a cranky old guard who will probably always throw rock every time just doesn't sound like a prison sentence I'll be able to live through. You do want to keep me alive, don't you? If you allow me to play chef here in this kitchen with you - just for a little while of course - I can teach you a thing or two about fine cuisine, and in return, I won't have to go stir-crazy! What do you say to that?"

His eyes went blank for a moment as he struggled to keep up with all the words she'd just spoken, but he eventually made it to the finish line and decided it all made sense in the end. "...fine. But no funny stuff...well, I mean like, no tricks. You can still do funny stuff. Tell jokes if you want. I'm bad at the knock-knock ones though...".

Peach gave a tiny sigh of relief and smiled as Cook released her arm. Half of the sigh came from knowing she wasn't likely now to be pummeled by some brainless brute, and the other half came from understanding that Cook was, at his core, nothing more than a conflicted soul. A gentle giant built for muscle but yearning for art. Without even asking, Peach had seen right to soul of his being, as she could with nearly anyone, and once you know that much about a person, you could Princess-talk your way through anything.

She had acknowledged and compressed all of these thoughts in a mere instant, gave a polite nod to Cook, then trained her attention on the task at hand, turning to the stove.

"Alright Cook, let's start at the beginning. Show me what you've got so far for this prison slop you've been working on."

He pointed unceremoniously to a greasy pot on the burner. "Potatoes."

She waited for him to list the rest of the ingredients, and when that list did not follow, she blinked and said, "...that's all?".

"Well...there's water in 'em too."

"That's water?" she ventured, hesitantly grabbing what appeared to be the least sticky part of the pot's handle and immediately regretting taking a whiff of the contents. "Where do you get the water from? Actually, never mind, I'm not sure I want to know...".

"Well, I mean, that IS what the recipe said," Cook mumbled, reciting from memory. "Smash the potatoes against the wall, then add water and stir until they form a thick and brothy mash soup. Serves one to fourteen, depending on jail capacity."

Peach pursed her lips. "That's all it says? Hmm...sounds like 'incomplete' was the right word after all."

"You think so too?" he asked, fidgeting with his fingers. "Cause I've wondered for a long time why we have so many ingredients down here if all we ever use is potatoes and water!"

She quickly spun around, eyes sparkling. "Other ingredients?"

He nodded and flipped open the cabinets overhead to reveal rows and racks of assorted jars, filled with an entire rainbow's worth of colored liquids and powders and mushy fruits. Peach's expression quickly brightened as she instantly began recognizing them by texture and smell.

"Cook," she said with the happiest smile she'd been able to muster since she'd woken up, "I'm about to show you a whole new world!"

"Now, let's start by sorting out what you've got to work with…" her voice drifted gently down the hall, echoing back into the block of cells she'd been escorted from previously. The guard was still lying on the floor, limbs tucked safely inside his shell. His breathing had been slowly steadying again as his reflexes finally began to uncoil and allow him to extract his limbs to their rightful places.

All of this is so wrong, he seethed to himself, flexing his stubby little toes as the life returned to them. Rule number one, you never take the prisoner out of their cell! That's the first lesson they teach you at Prison Guard School!

He meshed his fingers together and cracked his knuckles.

She's got some twisted plot brewing under that pile of blond hair, I just know it...she's gonna catch my poor little numbskull with his shields down and then make a break for it while he's picking his nose, and then both of us are REALLY gonna hear it from the boss!

His head slowly popped back into place.

Worst of all, he's the COOK, and I'm the GUARD. He's supposed to take orders from ME! I should be the one calling all the shots when it comes to prisoners!

He made a motion to roll up his sleeves, forgetting for a moment that his turtle neck was, in fact, not wearing a sweater at all. He donned his best frown and marched headlong into the kitchen, with as much determination and dignity as a scrawny-armed turtle on two legs can display.

"Cook, you'd better have a DARNED good explanation for what you did back there! And I'm in a very bad mood, so I don't wanna hear more than five words!"

Cook held up a finger and replied, "Shhh, she's making the soup!"

"...soup?"

Peach turned around to face the guard and gave him a polite, but vaguely insincere, smile. "You'd be surprised at the dishes you could make with all these ingredients you've had just lying around in here!"

"...you're making soup??"

"I'm learning so much," Cook said excitedly, watching in fascination as Peach continued to stir the pot.

"...about soup???"

"Is something wrong, Guard?" Peach asked, poking around in the cabinet.

The guard's tiny hand clenched slowly into a fist and he slammed it on the counter. "All you're teaching him is how to make an even LESS filling version of a dish he already knows how to make?! What kind of rip-off teacher ARE you, anyway?!"

"Please don't shout, Guard," Cook said, holding him back with one arm. "This's really important to me."

"Well keeping my job is important to ME!" he wailed, trying, without any results, to shove his way past. "I'm telling you, this is all a TRICK!"

"No tricks here," Cook replied, shaking his head. "I watched her put everything into the pot."

"Put WHAT into the pot?!"

"Well, I started with an onion broth," Peach explained, lightly tapping the powdered contents of another jar into the pot, "And then I've added a few chopped vegetables, salt, a dash of pepper, and now, for an extra flavor kick, I'm putting in some crushed passionflower and these delightful numinous mushrooms! I can't believe no one ever told you about all these wonderful ingredients, Cook! You've been sitting on a culinary goldmine all this time!"

"Well," he answered, meekly, "I told you, the recipe never asked for them…".

"You should never be afraid to deviate from the recipe," Peach advised, stirring the pot.

"You should ALWAYS be afraid to deviate from the recipe!" Guard shouted, stamping his foot. "What if you go too far and it turns into a disaster and the boss hates it, hmm? You WANNA get demoted to laundry boy?!"

"You mustn't be afraid to try though," she replied, calmly as ever.

"You should only try if you know it's gonna work!" he countered, wagging his finger.

"You only learn by understanding your failures," she corrected, tapping the spoon against the pot.

"You don't get more than ONE failure!" he screamed, beating his fists on Cook's arm.

Peach flashed him a knowing smile, flicked the switch on the stove, moved the pot to the side, and dipped a ladle into the soup. "If that's the case, then please allow me to take the blame for this one!"

She offered a spoonful to Cook, motioning for him to give it a taste. No sooner had he taken the ladle than his companion slipped out of his grip and tried to swipe it out of his hand.

"Don't be stupid, Cook!" he snarled, waving his arms frantically. "How do you know she didn't poison that or something?"

"She wouldn't poison it, Guard!" he resisted, keeping it high out of his reach. "Can you really imagine a Princess like her poisoning anyone?"

"That's not the point, you bonehead! Make HER taste it first!"

"Umm...excuse me, boys?"

"How is THAT going to teach me anything? Don't you care about my culinary education?"

"Cook, that's not the point!"

"YOUR job is to guard the Princess, Guard! That's why your name is Guard, Guard! My job is to be a master gourmand, and that means I can't be afraid to learn from my failures! Isn't that what you said, Princess?"

"Well, yes, but…".

"Fine!!" guard screamed, beating a tiny turtle fist against Cook's chest. "If that's how it has to be, then let ME taste it first, Cook! If anyone's gonna get poisoned and die from a lethal dose of sickly soup, then I don't want it to be you!"

Silence hummed in the air for a moment, accompanied only by Guard's faltering breath. His hands were trembling, and his eyes were strained, now clearly holding back hot tears.

Deep inside, Peach smiled...

"You're the one who's got a future here, Cook," Guard said, softly. "Me, I'm just a lowly prison guard, I'll never add up to anything big. But you, you're on the road to greatness already. So if anyone should take the plunge for some kinda poison soup, it should be worthless old me who goes first…".

He felt a pudgy finger tilt his head back up slowly. "Hey, don't talk like that, Guard...you know this prison would be a mess if it weren't for you, keepin' all these prisoners in line in that special way only you can do."

"Cook..." Guard started, trying to brush away a tear without drawing attention to it.

"Shh," Cook replied. "Your job's just as important as mine. Your job's very important...and YOU'RE very important."

Guard couldn't even respond. Answers kept forming in his head, but his mouth kept locking up, and no sound would come out. It was embarrassing. It infuriated him. But there was nothing he could do about that now...

His silence was at last interrupted by the sound of Peach politely clearing her throat. He turned to see her holding out a second ladle.

"Why don't you both try it together, then?"

They both stared back in a moment of silence. There was a certain warmth and sincerity radiating from Peach's smile that seemed to captivate them, even calm them. There was serenity and peace in her voice, a certain genuine feeling that couldn't be faked.

Both turned to look back at each other. The look they shared was one full of the history and deep friendship they shared. It communicated so many things without a single spoken word. In that single, binding moment, an amalgamation of their entire lives spent together, Peach could see that they really understood each other completely.

And without any further fanfare, they both shrugged and took the ladles from her, one apiece, then took a deep swig, allowing the warm soup to swish around and grace them with its magical, intoxicating taste before swallowing.

And intoxicate them it certainly did, for they both fell over in a heap mere seconds later.

"And now you know how to make the world's quickest sleeping potion!" Peach announced with pride, holding back the urge to giggle at her own handiwork.

She placed the ladles neatly back in the pot and quickly shuffled her way right out of the kitchen.

…but no, wait. Something made her stop and look back. Deep down, she sighed and cursed her eternally polite and benevolent nature…

With a quick dash back into the kitchen, she neatly jotted a few words on a scrap of paper, produced a lipstick crayon from her pocket, tucked the paper into Cook's unresisting hand, and THEN shuffled off down the hallway beyond the kitchen. The poor gullible Cook would much later awaken to find himself holding an apology note, followed by the preferred recipe for a very effective sleeping potion, signed in lipstick with a pink heart. It would remain one of his most cherished possessions for years.

Peach tip-toed on down the hallway, pressed as hard against the brick wall as her puffy bustle dress would allow without its inner framework making too much noise. This was a very ineffective outfit for a stealth operation, she noted glumly. Might need to either ditch this dress or prepare for another encounter soon…

She stuck close to the huge tapestries hanging from the ceiling, each one depicting a different close-up view of some horrible creature's face. Something halfway between a turtle and an ox, always leering, jeering, or sneering malevolently. Such tapestries lined either side of the hall, all the way down toward the open courtyard up ahead.

The list of suspected kidnapper identities narrowed considerably.

As the walls split farther apart and the ceiling disappeared overhead, she switched gears from sneak mode to proper Princess stride, walking cautiously along the wide checkerboard floor.

The courtyard was actually quite a pleasant place, especially contrasted against the dank and dim dungeon. The dark-light-dark slabs of the stone path went on to create a massive square in the center, with four stone columns pinning the corners. A series of carefully-trimmed rose bushes ran between each column in short intervals, and the bluest patch of sky hovered above with a gentle fountain of sunlight pouring down to complete the scene.

Add a few mushrooms and this courtyard could very well have been the sort of she herself would have built.

Questions continued prodding at her mind as she stepped between the bush rows into the central square. She now had a good idea of WHO had kidnapped her, but again, the more important mystery was WHY had they done it? For money? Maybe a certain lust for revenge, or spite? To inconsequentially dangle her on a fishing line in an effort to lure out a bigger, "more important" fish like Mario?

Answers weren't following, and she felt frustrations welling up in their place. So much frustration, in fact, that her guard fell for the duration of nearly four whole steps, and she almost forgot entirely that she was still on a stealth escape mission. She held a hand up to her temple for a moment to stop the tumbling thoughts, and return to alert and active sneak-stepping.

Immediately, the floor sank down on the next step.

She threw herself backward as an enormous chunk of stone in the shape of a horrible turtle-ox head sprung out of the ground - quite literally, it was attached to a spring - and bobbled menacingly above her, that same diabolical grin from the hall tapestries now staring her right in the face.

And it was laughing hysterically at her, too.

"WAHAHAHAHAHA!!! The look on your face!! WOW!!!"

Peach slowly lowered her hands and stopped shouting when she realized it wasn't going to gobble her up. It just bounced limply back and forth. She also realized it wasn't the one actually doing the laughing.

The sun vanished behind a cloud she was certain hadn't been there before as the voice echoed and cascaded off the castle walls. "What a SUCKER!!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!"

The giant stone head eventually stopped wobbling and slowly retracted itself back under the surface of the stone floor. She had gotten a good look at its face though, and recognition kicked in. It didn't even have to kick in, because that same face appeared atop one of the stone pillar behind the head, still cackling like mad.

"Sorry if I SCARED ya, Princess!!! HAHAHA!!" said the little Koopa, waving his hand in greeting. "Hope I didn't make ya pee your pants!!!"

"Actually, I'm wearing a dress," Peach replied, pulling herself to her feet. "Which is more than can be said for you, Iggy Koopa…".

"Hoo hoo hoo!! Ya got that right!!!" Iggy hollered, wiggling his backside and slapping it with the wand. "Naked is freedom!!!"

"Nude is rude," she replied, rolling her eyes.

"So I gotta say, Princess, this is a COMPLETELY unexpected turn of events!!" Iggy said, hopping down from his perch and landing with a smash. "I kinda figured you'd just wait around for Mario to show up, but SURPRISE!!! You escaped on your own!!"

"Yes Iggy, I know," she said, patiently. "I was there for the whole thing."

"Hehehehe, you musta got FED UP with Guard and Cook, eh??? WAHAHAHAHA!!! FED UP!!! GET IT?!?"

She only smiled, rather fakely. She knew from past experience that Iggy was impossible to take seriously, not only because his personality matched that of a small child who found everything in the known world utterly hilarious, but also because his head looked like a rutabaga with glasses.

Best to play along though, on the off chance he might accidentally let slip why he'd kidnapped her in the first place...

"Well then," she said, straightening up as princesses often did, "What happens now?"

Iggy stopped laughing long enough to roll back to his feet and look the princess in the eye, crazed grin to royal smirk, his head barely level with her waist and his sprout of hair brushing against her chin. "Now?? Now you get back in your CAGE, Princess!!! Before I have to get ROUGH with ya!!!"

He tried to spin her around by latching on to her legs, but due to a very handy height advantage, she remained firmly unmoved. "I'd really rather not go back in the cell, Iggy."

"Tough beans!!!" he shouted, pushing hard with his shoulder. "You gotta stay locked up!!! At least for now!!"

"For now?" She asked, picking up any context he might accidentally be laying down. "Is something going to happen later?"

"MAAAAAAAYBEEEEEE!!!" Iggy sang, giving up on the pushing and instead tapping her on the hip with the wand. "Or maybe you'd better just SKEDADDLE before I have to use THIS bad boy on ya!!!"

"I'm fairly certain you won't use that on me," she said, wagging her finger and maybe wondering if she should have saved that card to play a little later. "If you're keeping me prisoner, I'm sure you must also need me unharmed, right?"

The smile he gave in response was twisted and toothy and terrible. "...who said I needed you UNHARMED???"

With a few back handsprings and an unnecessarily flashy twirl, Iggy took a stand at the base of the stone pillar, artfully bounced and juggled the wand between his hands, then quite suddenly flung a neon green fireball at her from the jewelled tip.

Peach hopped deftly aside and watched the fireball bounce and skitter until it faded away before turning back to Iggy, who was once again giggling like mad. Gears in her mind were already spinning, logging and sifting through every word he said in search of some kind of context or clues. The trick would be to keep him talking…

"Is that all you're going to do, Iggy?" she asked, as close to middle ground between politeness and challenge could be attained. "Zap me with a fireball and lock me up in a cage?"

"Sure sounds like a solid plan to me!!!" He laughed and fired another shot.

A solid plan. This had probably been a premeditated venture.

"I have to say," she had to say as she dodged again. "I'm a bit offended that you'd just stash me away like that. After all, I'm your guest!"

"I didn't invite you, dummy, I KIDNAPPED you!!!"

Didn't invite. He was probably ordered to do it.

"But you haven't even told me the occasion!" she said, swaying back to avoid another shot. "Surely you didn't just kidnap me so you could throw fireballs at me!"

"Hmmm...you're RIGHT!!!" Iggy said, scratching his tiny vegetable head with the end of the wand. "...I did it so I could watch you DANCE!!!!"

And with yet another bout of maniacal laughter, he began rapid-firing shots aimed at Peach's feet. Just as he'd wanted, she started dancing swiftly on her tip-toes, keeping just out of harm's way.

"Come on now, Iggy!" she half-shouted, suddenly grateful for every single dancing lesson she'd forced herself to take over the years. "If you're just going to toy around with me, let's at least play a two-player game!"

The fireballs ceased. A glint of light beamed off Iggy's glasses. "...a game?"

Deep inside, Peach smiled.

"Well, if you won't tell me what's going on, and if you're just going to lock me up in prison otherwise, then let's at least play a game to pass the time," she suggested, fixing her dress back into place. "I'd never forgive myself for being a boring guest."

"That's the first sensible thing you've said today, Princess!!!" Iggy said gleefully. "Let's play a game together!!! How about--"

He clapped his hands together three times, gave a shrill whistle, then blew a raspberry with his tongue. As if they'd been waiting in the hall somewhere, an entire platoon of koopa troopas emerged into the courtyard, lining up in a formation of four rows, two on either side of the center square. It didn't take Peach long to put two and two together when she realized each turtle was standing on their own square of the checkerboard, the ones on her side dressed in red shells, and Iggy's in green.

"--a game of CHESS!!!"

He took up position in the back row and motioned for Peach to do the same. "There's no official chess piece called 'Princess', but you wouldn't mind playing as the King, would you??? AHAHAHAHA!!"

Peach nodded and began automatically striding over to her assigned square on the checkerboard. Her mind was running gymnastics trying to figure out how to stay on top of the situation, so she'd let her default Princess skills autopilot her body for the moment. She just needed a way to make sure she'd win the game…

"Hey Mister Referee!!!" Iggy shouted, hopping excitedly in place. "Get in here and tell us who gets to go first!!!!"

Right on cue, as if descending down from the very sun itself, the cloud Peach had seen block out the sky earlier was now making its way down to the courtyard. As it hovered between the four pillars, a small Lakitu face bobbed up from within the cloud and waved to both armies.

"In accordance with the official rules as stated in 'Iggy Koopa's Laws of Chess, Vol. III'," the referee announced, "Green comes alphabetically before red, and thus Iggy will have the first move of this exciting match!"

I could have told you that, Peach thought with a smirk. Her eyes darted back and forth, comparing her options. Chess or not, she knew a game with someone like Iggy wasn't going to have time for thoughtful and strategic moves. This would be a game played on impulse and random arbitrary moves, something Peach was not particularly good--

"MAKE YOUR MOVE ALREADY, SLOWPOKE!!!!"

She blinked. Iggy had already moved a pawn forward and was now impatiently tapping the wand in his hand with a surly glare trained on her.

She blinked again. Then, remembering her rank, puffed up her chest and pointed to a pawn koopa in the front. "You, forward please."

Without so much as a second thought (or even a second's thought), Iggy sent another pawn to take hers.

"HAHAHAHA!!" he cackled, waving the wand over his head. "Now, watch THIS!!!!"

He spun around in one more circle, then flung a huge fireball forward, crashing it head-on with Peach's pawn. The terrified koopa ducked into its shell in just the nick of time as the collision sent it flying across the courtyard, where it ricocheted off the wall and ended up skidding down the hallway back toward the kitchen.

"WAHAHAHAHA, oh wow, that NEVER gets old!!!" He hollered, lying on his stomach and beating the ground with his fists. Then he stopped and looked Peach directly in the eye. "...imagine how much fun it's going to be when I take YOU!!!!!"

Alarm bells, red flags, and big flashing ALERT! signs were all going off in her head, but she allowed none of them to pass through to her face. She had to keep that perfectly serene royal demeanor she'd perfected instead. Calmly, eloquently, she called her next move.

And immediately, Iggy seized that piece too, amidst more laughter.

Not good, not good, she whispered to herself, trying with every fiber of her being not to sweat or fidget. I can't allow myself to be nervous. I have to show him I'm in control, even though I'm clearly not. 

Another move, another fireball.

The calmer I remain, the more it feeds his need for chaos. Soon he'll just get so hyperactive that he'll move without even thinking about it first.

The number of koopas left on the board was dwindling fast.

And that's when I can lure him into a trap! ...but what trap? What do I have to work with?

One piece left.

I didn't have time to plan any traps! This game has been rigged in his favor since the start! He's got complete control of the board! What could I possibly spring on him this late in the game...?

Her eyes lit up.

"Looks like you've only got ONE MOVE LEFT, Princess!!!!" Iggy said, dancing in place with maddening anticipation. "Any last words before I blast your pretty blond hair into ashes?!?"

Peach gave him a warm, friendly smile, complete with a wave of her hand. "Thanks for the game, Iggy! Good match!"

And with that, she reared back, then launched forward, dashing across the board to a single unoccupied square. The green koopas all stepped aside, keeping out of the imminent blast proximity. Iggy charged up the shot. The floor sank beneath Peach's foot.

The referee had been recording the match from his hovering cloud the entire time, in hopes of later broadcasting the event under his own name to gain some new followers, and he couldn't have been more proud of his decision to save recording space on his camera for the finale, because the moment that followed was sure to be movie-making gold.

The giant stone head sprung up out of the checkerboard floor, same as it had before, and this time it was carrying the Princess with it. And when its spring had reached its limit and pulled back, Peach kept flying forward without it, stretching her hand out to grab the target she'd been aiming for. Somewhere inside her brain was a part of her that still questioned how anyone could "grab" a cloud as if it were a solid surface, but that part was quickly shushed and ushered out of the room by the more important ones.

Fingers deeply dug, she swung herself back and forth, building up momentum and trying to ignore the Lakitu bent over the edge of the cloud in an effort to get a shot of her for his movie. Far beneath, she could hear Iggy shouting rampant nonsense about "rules" and "fairness". She didn't even have to guess what he would do next, and she was indeed ready for it...

When the bright green fireballs inevitably came rushing forth, she swung forward and pressed herself up against the underside of the cloud, firmly grasping it at the edges as spread-eagle as her dress would allow. And when the shots flew past, just barely missing her head, they crashed into the peeping Lakitu instead, knocking him out of his perch in a wild cartwheel spin.

Peach quickly unhooked her feet, swung back, then forward again, kicking up into the body of the cloud and climbing inside to take his place. Again, she didn't bother to question the physics involved. Especially with Iggy readying another salvo of fiery green pain down below. It was time to go.

It was then that she realized she had no idea how to drive a cloud.

There were no labels or switches in front of her, just little rounds knots of whatever substance cloud was made of. Maybe they functioned like buttons? No time to think about it. She placed her hands into what looked like a particularly important mound of fluff, and testily poked it with one finger.

The cloud rocketed off into the distance.

And far down below, a very frustrated Iggy Koopa hopped around on the floor and cried like a sore loser. The referee watched his very first cloud, given to him by his loving mother for his birthday, disappear out of sight with a lonely tear in his eye.

After a moment, the statue head slowly receded into its underground bedroom, the chess koopas all reemerged from their collective shells, and Iggy's wailing slowly relaxed into pouty sniffling. The usual calm - if 'calm' was what you called it - returned to the castle courtyard. The sun had even come back into view.

...just in time for the castle wall to crumble with a loud "BA-BOMB!" sound. Bricks flew in every direction, thick dirt and dust choked the air, and a silhouetted figure stood menacingly in the newly-formed opening.

Iggy watched in amazement, rubbing the debris from his eyes as the figure approached him.

"What did you go and do that for?!?!" he shouted, rubbing his vegetable of a head. "And who the heck ARE you anyway????"

The figure made no response, except to start running faster.

"Whoa, hey now!!!!" Iggy reared back and raised the wand. "You'd better back up right this MINUTE!!!!"

He fired a warning shot. The shadow dodged gracefully and continued barreling toward him.

"HEY!!!!"

Before he even had the chance, the stranger jumped into the air, knocked Iggy to the floor with a kick in the head, and landed just behind him.

He felt a pair of hands pick him up and spin him around.

And he looked into the eyes of his attacker.

"...M-MARIO?!?!?!"

Mario quickly snatched the wand from his hand and stuffed into his back pocket. "I heard you captured the Princess! Where'a you keepin' her?"

No longer frightened now that things had returned to their usual ways, Iggy's expression slowly melted back into its familiar twisted grin. He licked his lips, adjusted his glasses, then said with an almost eerie calm:

"...sorry Mario, but your Princess is in another castle!"


	2. Escape From Morton

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peach has crash-landed far, far away in the desert! What will become of her in this harsh and unforgiving land of heat and hammers?

"Well, this certainly is a fine mess..." Peach said aloud, shaking the dirt and debris from her hair as she tried, very shakily, to stand on her feet again. Everything inside her skull was still vibrating from the force of the crash, and she could feel her stomach still rolling over itself like a bowling ball inside her.

She took a deep breath, realizing too late that doing so was a terrible mistake. She immediately - but still very politely - began coughing out a lungful of thick and offensively hot dust.

...hot dust? she pondered. No, wait...sand…? I made it all the way out to the desert?

She blinked to clear the sand from her eyelashes and squinted to account for the glaring sunlight. Her eyes widened as she took notice of where her runaway Lakitu cloud, which had surely evaporated by now, had crash landed her. She wasn't just any old somewhere in the desert.

She'd hit some kind of construction site, a tower made of bricks sitting atop a massive wall made of hardened sand. Her impact had caused a significant deal of damage; she'd remodeled the incomplete tower by adding a full-sized, Peach-shaped window to it. Looking at it for a moment, she wondered when her hips had grown so wide, until she remembered that the frame of her bustle dress was most likely responsible for the shape.

No time to worry about inconsequential things anyway, she told herself. Got to focus and get my bearings.

Had she been honest with herself, she would have admitted that she was essentially clueless when it came to bearings-finding, especially without a map. Such was a consequence of spending every day in the same castle, tending to her own flock, rather than setting off for adventure and exploring the world. Who had time to be a princess AND a traveler, anyway?

Peach took a step out of the tower's arched entrance, and immediately raised a hand to her brow to shield out the absolutely blinding sunlight. For miles ahead, she could see nothing below the wall she stood upon but an expanse of vivid, orange sand. Hills made of sand, large stones rising up out of sand, windswept ripple patterns in sand, and one lone, tall cactus with what appeared to be a wide-brimmed hat atop its head, surrounded on all sides by, you guessed it, sand.

She'd read about deserts like this before, and she was certain she'd overhead Mario talk about them as well, but they'd never been explained as desolate as this. She turned around to look instead in the other direction, and found herself staring at something entirely different.

The tower stood at the edge of what appeared to be a massive, sprawling sand fortress. Several other towers, some even complete with sand brick parapets at the top, rose up around the perimeter wall. A massive, coughing furnace sat in a pit against the far wall, occasionally belching out a puff of black smoke. Tall stairways and raised brick paths ran frantically through to the center of the place, a dozen lines coalescing in the middle like a spiderweb. She could also see tiny doors set into the sides of the walls beside each road as well, like some kind of vertical village.

And it was not one devoid of inhabitants either.

Bustling and milling all about were scores of turtle folk in all sizes and shell colors, some lugging heavy carts heaped high with sand, others carrying massive sledgehammers over their shoulders. They all seemed to be in quite the hurry. Perhaps because some tall foreigner in an absurdly bright pink dress had just magically appeared out of the sky and careened like a rocket into their latest building project.

Against what most sensible people would consider "better judgment", Peach stepped forward to meet the incoming scores of koopa, hoping to offer an apology for the mess she'd made.

"Hello!" she called, raising a hand in formal greeting. "Please excuse my intrusion--".

"Get her!"

Within moments, she was surrounded by a host of dust-caked koopas, each one giving her their own evil eye. She glanced around at all of their faces in a circle, slowly lowering her hand. So much for the diplomatic route, she thought glumly.

"Don't try nothin' funny," said a portly turtle with a massive sledgehammer. "Or I'll smash ya like a pancake!"

Part of her wanted to correct him, to inform him that, grammatically speaking, he would smash her INTO a pancake, not LIKE one, as most people did not smash pancakes with hammers. Another part of her wondered if maybe it WAS desert koopa culture to smash pancakes with hammers, and that maybe it wasn't her place to criticize. But the most important part of her insisted she remain quiet and complicit, per typical Princess standards, at least until she was speaking with someone who wasn't carrying a hammer.

"We got this," the sledge-bearing turtle announced to the crowd, motioning for them to disperse. "Get back to work, 'fore I tell the big Boss you still ain't hit quota for today!"

The crowd immediately whipped into shape and scrambled back to their assigned work posts, leaving Peach with an escort of two slim and helmeted koopas carrying small hammers on either side, and the stout one who seemed to be in charge bringing up the rear.

"Get movin'!" he barked, prodding her in the back with a pudgy finger. As one unit, the four of them marched down the narrow sand path leading to the center of the village, a tiny minaret tower perched on its own carved sandstone column, the connecting hub of all the stairs and streets in the whole operation.

Peach tried to absorb as much of the situation as she could while they marched, trying to discern just where in the world she'd landed. She'd skimmed over a page or two about desert culture, but coming from the Mushroom Kingdom's point of view, there wasn't much to say. The desert people had always been a bit distant and tended not to get out much, or interact with Mushroom folk at all. She instead started wondering who this Boss she was intended to meet could possibly be. Deciphering his identity shouldn't be too hard if she took a moment to analyze the people working under him.

The koopas living here were of a very broad variety. Many of them appeared to be living together as families or couples. They lived in small, cramped houses dug into the sides of the walls that made up the very paths Peach and her escorts were walking on. They were very likely walking on someone's roof just now, even. And, she noticed, nearly all of the koopas were carrying hammers over their shoulders…

Had she not been trained to do otherwise, she'd have bit her lip out of nervous habit. The Boss's identity was becoming more and more apparent.

Their formation shifted single-file as they approached the arched doorway of the central tower, and once they stepped inside, Peach could see there was a winding staircase built against the walls and leading down into the underground. The place was lit by curious torches burning a faint blue color, and it smelled like the smoky after-scent of candles.

"Quit dawdlin'!" Sledgehammer bellowed behind her.

The entire posse was ushered quickly down the stairs, much to Peach's dismay. The stairs didn't even have a guard rail on the side, and she'd have been lying to herself if she wasn't afraid of falling into the soupy darkness below. She tried to distract her fears by again summing up what she'd seen on the way down. These were clearly a people with little regard for safety, living in a poverty-stricken wasteland, presumably miners or quarry workers, organized socially by the size of the hammer they carried. All signs were pointing to a total of one person the boss could be…

There were times when she actually hated being always right.

"Yo, Boss!" Sledge announced as they reached the ground floor, a massive rectangular room hollowed out beneath the sandstone all around. "You'll never believe who's come to pay us a visit!"

The Boss, hunched over some kind of workbench, carrying a pale gray spiny shell on his back, sporting only a few meager strands of something that once resembled hair on his head, and bearing a curious rock and roll inspired star mark around one eye, whipped around and growled back, "Can't you see I'm busy?!"

She definitely hated being always right.

His star-studded eye widened with recognition as his vision adjusted to the bright pink of the intruder's outfit. "...P-Princess?! Here??"

Peach smiled and gave a dainty wave. "Hello, Morton."

Morton glared first at her, then at each of her escorts, then at Sledge. "...when did SHE get here?"

"She crashed into the new tower!" Sledge replied, pointing with his hammer. "It's gonna take us hours, maybe even DAYS to rebuild it!"

"No, WHEN did she get here?" Morton repeated, his voice gruff and irritable.

"Well, we just caught her," Sledge explained. "But she knocked a hole in the tower! That's gonna take TIME and PEOPLE to repair it! Whole schedule's been chopped up into minces!"

"I'm not worried about THAT schedule," he grumbled, taking hold of his own massive hammer beside his bench. "I'm worried about HER schedule!"

...what's so important about all these schedules? Peach thought, listening intently.

"When ya gonna let us in on this whole mystery schedule nonsense, Boss?" Sledge asked, cautiously eyeing Morton's clearly-bigger-than-his-own hammer. "Don't we have a right to know whether or not we're on track?"

"HEY!" Morton shouted, smashing the hammer into the brittle sandstone floor. "I told you to NEVER ask questions! I told you to focus on building this fortress as fast as you could!"

"We HAVE been buildin' as fast as possible!" Sledge retorted, stomping his foot. Peach felt the world almost stop moving for a moment as the resulting tremor rattled its way right up through her spine. "We been workin' overtime on all shifts, packin' away at this sand tower project of yours, and in all of an instant, half our work comes crumblin' down when this flouncy pink puffball up and smashes right into it from outta the sky!"

"Then you'd better get BACK to working on it, pronto!!" Morton shouted, smashing the floor again, as if it were some kind of display of dominance. "I'll figure out what I'm gonna do with the Princess and get back to you. You just get moving!"

Sledge opened his mouth to continue the protest, but ended up swallowing back his words. Peach could feel the dank aura of resentment radiating from his expression, but she didn't have a chance to say anything before he grunted, shouldered his hammer, and slumped away, followed closely by his crew.

After they had left, Morton turned to her with a sullen scowl. "Well, Princess, what do you have to say for yourself?"

Peach quietly cleared her throat, placed her hands in her lap, and responded, "I'm very sorry I ruined your tower, though I will add that it was an accident. To be honest, I hadn't even expected to end up coming out this way…".

"Well, I didn't expect you either," he grumbled, leaning on the handle of his hammer. "...not yet, anyway. I wasn't ready!"

"You...were expecting me at a different time?" Peach inquired, poking for crumbs of information.

"Forget about it," he said with a hand wave. "I don't even have time to be menacing and horrible right now, the schedule's completely zonked...you've made things really inconvenient for me and my boys, you know!"

"I do apologize for that," she said, bowing slightly. Maybe this wasn't the most opportune moment to fish for info. "Is there any way I can help make up for the damages?"

Morton stared back at her for a moment, his jaw moving from side to side as he considered the option. Peach hadn't even meant to ask it so forwardly, but sometimes grace and benevolence in the face of your enemies were the only weapons a Princess could wield, and you never could gauge the outcome of a confrontation without first testing the other person's response to genuine kindness.

"Well, I was just gonna throw you in the dungeon..." he finally replied, his expression evolving first into a sneer, then to something almost like a crooked smile.

"Oh, please, no, not that," she said, waving her hands. "I couldn't handle the boredom!"

"...BUT," he continued, hefting the hammer back into his hands, "I think I just got a better idea!"

Her eyes darted nervously toward the stairs. In the back of her mind, she wondered if she could make a break for it, and if she did, just where she'd run to after that. How long would she last out in the middle of a desert...with no food...and no water...yikes.

"...what are you thinking then, Morton?"

He moved toward her with slow deliberate steps, forcing her back up as he approached. "Schedules or not, you ARE my prisoner, just as you would've been anyway. But what use are you going to be if just you're stashed away in some dungeon?"

Peach honed in on his words. He was intent on keeping her as a prisoner, and he hadn't been expecting her YET. So perhaps there WAS some sort of conspiracy or bigger plot behind Iggy bagging her?

"So, what I'm thinking," he said, stepping ever closer, "Is that I'll just have to find a use for you until we actually have time to BUILD a dungeon for you in the first place…".

She suddenly found herself pressed up against the wall, unable to back up any farther. "If I can make myself useful, that would certainly be preferable to sitting in a dungeon...".

He pressed the handle of his hammer against her waist like a crossbar, completely entrapping her, his grin glinting in the blue candlelight. "...I'm gonna put you to work!"

The words were given a chance to echo around in Peach's head for a moment as she took a moment to understand them. They sounded much more hollow and disappointing than what the buildup had lead her to believe they'd be.

"...work?" she repeated, all at once relieved, but secretly a bit let down by the anticlimax.

"Yep!" he announced, releasing her and giving her a nudge back toward the stairs. "Now enough talking, let's get you back out in that blistering desert sunshine!"

She could only look back at him in mild confusion as she shuffled back up the stairs. Surely he didn't mean to put her out on some construction crew, out in the choking heat, working and sweating over manual labor, right? Clearly he could see that she just wasn't built for such a task, right?

"Get moving!" he boomed, prodding her bottom with the blunt end of his hammer. "We've still got a full schedule on our hands!"

"Yes, I'm going!" Her voice was firm and fine, but only on the surface. Uncertainty, fear, and disdain hid layered beneath her words. A commonly misunderstood aspect of Princessdom was not that you had the ability to command people through your words, but that you knew when and just how many words to use when speaking. You needn't say more than only was necessary to convey your point, and you could always do so without revealing any underlying emotions if you kept the vocabulary small enough. Conversation may have been the most underestimated tool in any Princess's arsenal.

Now though, she was unsure whether it had just spared her a confrontation or landed her in a pot of metaphorical boiling water.

She was made to retrace her steps all the way back up to the entrance, at hammer-point the entire way. From there, Morton directed her further down the steps toward the pit where the enormous furnace sat. The furnace itself was packed tightly against the far wall, which rose too high for her to see if greener pastures awaited beyond.

No time to dwell on the thought, anyway. As they reached the ground level of the sand pit, the nasty smell of coal and hot metal hovering about, Peach could feel the eyes of a dozen koopas all jeering at her. They stopped at their tasks - shovelling, loading the furnace, pushing carts - just long enough to scowl menacingly at her, their guest of dishonor.

That is, until they heard the shout of an angry turtle, followed by the clatter of a hammer against an anvil. No one seemed keen on disobeying the one holding the second-largest hammer in the village.

"Uh, Boss?" Sledge asked, scratching his head, "Why'd ya bring the creampuff over here?"

"Say hello to the new meat," Morton replied, giving her a push - the last push he'd ever give her if she had anything to say about it. "Get her a shovel and put her to work on the tower right away!"

"Th-the tower?" Sledge sputtered, flipping through a stack of pages on his clipboard. "Boss, hang on now, we don't want no runts workin' on our brand new tower! She won't do nothin' but get in our way!"

"You questioning me, Sledge?!" Morton threatened, readying his hammer.

"...n-no. No, Boss," he answered with a sigh, tossing the clipboard onto a work bench. "I'll...get her started on shovel duty."

"Good," Morton said, turning on his heel and hiking back toward his cavern. "Get back to me when you've hit the quota for today."

"We still gotta hit quota, AFTER repairing the damage she already done earlier??" Sledge wailed, his words falling on deaf ears. Morton had already slunked out of range.

Or perhaps he just doesn't want to listen to it, Peach mused.

The hammer-on-anvil sound snapped her back to attention. Sledge, rubbing his temple with a free hand, spoke in the tones of a rubber band stretched to its thinnest. "Alright Pinky, here's the drill…".

He pointed with his hammer - was there anything these people did without the use of hammers? - as he explained the process. "So ya dig lotsa sand from here. Goop it up with water from that big pipe over there. Use yer tiny hands to mold it into a square kinda shape. Put the brick in the thing and yank the handle. Takes 30 minutes to cook, but there's always another one done and waiting in one of the other racks. Keep doin' that 'til you get enough bricks to fill a cart. Haul the cart up that thing. The hammer bros will take it from there. Ya got all that?"

Peach nodded uncertainly. It was a simple concept, after all, but how on earth was she expected to carry out such tasks, much less be any good at them?

"Good. Now let's get you suited up."

"Suited up?" she asked, glancing down at her dress.

"Don't stick me no sass!" he snapped back. "You're gettin' out of that hideous pink thing and you're gonna pop yourself on a REAL outfit!"

He made his way over to a cluster of koopas gathered under the shade of a small tent, presumably on their break. They all snapped to attention as he approached and formed a line.

"Hold out yer nubby little hands, all of ya!" he bellowed. The line promptly obeyed.

"Eenie meenie miney moe," he recited, pointing to a hand with each word. "This here turtle gets to go!"

Immediately, the other turtles scrambled away from the chosen victim as Sledge pushed him to the ground with his foot and raised his hammer high. Peach put a hand to her mouth and gasped in horror as he expertly swung the hammer low like a golf club, knocking the koopa right out of his shell in the process. He rolled head over heels a few times, eventually getting caught in the sand and slowing to a stop. Peach finally exhaled again when he sat up, rubbing his head gingerly.

Sledge picked up the shell and carefully brought it back over toward her, gently setting it on the ground. Eyeing it uncomfortably, Peach made a noise like "..." before remembering her manners and resumed silently holding her hands in her lap as Sledge cleared his throat.

"There's a changin' room over there," he said, pointing with his hammer. "Careful though, these things are slippery as a fish and they'll shoot off like a cannonball if you so much as bump 'em with your toe!"

...is that why Mario always seems so cautious around them? Peach wondered, carefully picking up the shell. Except for the lip around the edges, the shell was very smooth - almost waxy - on the surface and offered no other convenient handholds. It would be very easy to let it slip…

A fact she stowed away in the back of her mind for later.

"We ain't got all day, missy!" Sledge yelled.

She nodded and made her way over to a single booth of a tent with only a canvas flap for a doorway. Getting out of her dress had always proved to be a chore, especially a poofy one such as this, because there was a certain wire framework on the inside that made the poofy part poof, and it couldn't just be pulled on and off like a "regular" garment. A lot of snaking of the limbs was required, and the original instruction manual had suggested dressing and undressing was a two-person job.

What she may have lacked in physical strength though, Peach made up for in sheer, uncompromising Princess skills. No one knew more about manners, social convention, and proper dress removal technique than she did.

And escape tactics too, she reminded herself. There has to be a way out of this mess somewhere, somehow. Unfortunately, her options seemed very few and very grim at the moment.

The turtle shell was a bit small for Peach's height, but its frame would at least cover what it needed to, and all she had to do to get it on was slip into it from the wide opening in the neck. Certainly easier than the bustle dress. She tried to ensure that her limbs fit snugly through the holes on the sides and that she left nothing impolitely exposed. She knew it was an utter fashion disaster, and was for once glad she didn't have a mirror on hand to confirm this.

When she finally emerged from the tent, Sledge was still waiting, very impatiently. "About time! Get yourself a shovel and start diggin'!"

Peach wanted to protest, but Sledge didn't seem to have the capacity for patience right now - or ever, maybe - so she'd have to have enough patience for both of them and play along for the time being. Still, going through him seemed to be the most viable option for cooking up an escape plan. There had to be a way to get under such a thick skin...

"What can you tell me about this tower project, Sledge?" she started, following him back down into the sand pit where a horde of other koopas were busily digging up cartloads of sand.

"It's nuts," he grimaced, shaking his head. "The materials, the labor, the schedule...it's all straightjacket crazy! That's why YOU are gonna get straight to work and help us get back on track!"

"Yes, I've noticed there seems to be a lot of emphasis placed on this schedule," she continued, probing for something, anything. "Why is this tower so time-sensitive?"

"Beats me," he said, vaguely. "Boss wants it done yesterday, but you couldn't build that thing in a day if you had all the koopas in the world."

"Why's that?" she pressed, picking up a shovel.

"None of yer business," he replied, arms crossed. "Dig!"

Defeated, she sighed and stabbed the shovel into the sand alongside the others. Sledge was definitely hiding something. Or rather, he wasn't hiding it, but made it clear he didn't want it to be found...which, as any Princess might guess, meant that somewhere deep inside, he really DID want to talk about it, and maybe just didn't know how.

Schedule...the tower...her own arrival...Morton had clearly been anticipating her arrival, but not as soon as she'd made it happen. It seemed very important that the tower be completed, presumably BEFORE she'd arrived. Could that mean the tower was meant for her? Keep the princess locked up in a tall sand tower? How creative…

Peach held her breath and heaved, summoning all her might just to lift the full shovel. She could feel her shoes sinking into the sand beneath her as she managed to get it level with the cart, then quickly tossed its contents inside and brought the shovel back down to lean on it.

The bigger question still loomed: why? If Iggy had been the one to kidnap her, why would Morton be expecting her later? Why shuffle her around like that? She was clearly meant to be a prisoner, yes, but why move the prisoner? To throw off anyone who might be attempting a rescue mission?

Mario…

She clenched her teeth and hoisted again, droplets of sweat beading up on her forehead as she struggled. Surely Mario had already been dispatched to come and rescue her. The Mushroom Kingdom citizens would have spotted Iggy when he fled the scene, and surely Mario would have already made his way out to the castle and made short work of Iggy by now. But how would he know where to go from there? After all, Peach herself was the only one who knew where she'd ended up after the fact...

Three shovels later, she was already short of breath and dabbing at her forehead. The heat was already becoming unbearable out here. Even removed of her heavy dress, the shell only offered so much protection, and she could feel sweat pooling up in all the places a Princess shouldn't even think about. She blew the loose hair from her forehead, wondering if it were possible to beat the heat simply by ignoring it.

"No slackin'!" Sledge shouted down from above.

"Please be patient with me, Sledge," she replied, between huffs. "Manual labor is not a skill I've invested much time and effort into…".

"No excuses, neither!" he spat back. "Ya think any of these chuckleheads know anything about construction? They're clueless! They know as much about buildin' things as a fish does about flyin'!"

Peach almost replied with a quip about having personally witnessed fish that could fly, but decided it would not be a wise course of action.

"Is it really that difficult to build?" she asked instead.

"Y'know what, why don't I just show ya?" he snapped, snatching a stack of papers from his makeshift bench and leaping down from his post. The ground shook with a massive quake when he landed, knocking Peach and many of the koopas off their balance. After managing to roll herself over and haul herself back to her feet, she turned to get a look at the blueprint schematics Sledge was holding up.

"Y'see this?" he said, pointing to a drawing of an un-wrecked watch tower. "This is what we're buildin'. This tower right here."

It looked like a standard tower as far as she could tell, not much different than the minaret in the center of town. She said so.

"Oh sure, it LOOKS pretty," he said, flipping through the additional pages. "In fact, it's downright gorgeous. The spindly dome thing at the top makes a very effective counterweight that adds a lot of stability to the whole structure. Boss actually has a sound grip on construction theory…".

"BUT…" his expression soured even further as he gestured around. "Ya ever try making one of these outta SAND? And then built it on TOP of MORE sand?"

Peach only shook her head, breathing hard as she tried to push the cart full of sand on top of more sand toward the big water pipe.

"It don't work!" he continued, more expressive than ever. "I mean yeah, you could build a tower outta sand bricks if you don't need nothin' too sturdy, but this guy wants to build it on SAND?!"

"I imagine...sand is...difficult to build on?" she asked, hands on her knees as she caught her breath. She could already see his point if sand was this difficult to push a cart over.

"Look, I been tryin' to tell him, a tower that big ain't gonna hold its own weight if it's stacked on a weak foundation. Foundation's the most important part of a buildin', Pinky. Ya can't fudge the foundation, y'listenin'?"

"Yes, I hear you," she said, slumping her way over to the water pipe. She could feel a small victory in her heart over convincing Sledge to open up about the project, but the feeling was overshadowed by the more immediate feeling of deadweight exhaustion. She looked up to the pipe.

The whole thing was bigger in diameter than even she was, turtle shell and all. She tried to imagine why on earth a desert town would have such a massive water pipe, and with perfect timing, her mouth immediately reminded her that it was dry as a bone. Ahh, of course...

"Whoa there!" Sledge interrupted, hammer crashing into the sand. She fell backward to avoid it and struggled to pick herself back up. "You sure you wanna drink any of that?"

"If I may so ask," she replied, with just a speck of grit in her otherwise calm and eternally regal voice, "Why would I ever turn down a drink out here in the scorching desert heat?"

Sledge grinned knowingly and put a hand on the crank next to the pipe's mouth. "Ever wonder where the water ya drink comes from?"

Peach eyed the pipe questioningly, then turned back to him.

He turned the handle just a bit to open some huge, echoing valve inside the pipe, and a small stream of water began pouring out. It looked like normal water. It smelled like normal water. It felt like normal water when she put a hand under it. She again turned to Sledge questioningly.

"It's normal water, I'm just jackin' with ya!" he said with a laugh. "It's hooked up to the lake on the far side of the mountains, so we can pipe over as much free water as we wanna, to do with however we so please!"

Peach took a moment to consider this, considered it useful information, and cataloged for later. But for now she returned to her original line of thought.

"Then why did you stop me from drinking it in the first place?"

"Hey now, don't get touchy with me," he said, shouldering his hammer again. "I just figured a fancypants like yourself might find lake water a bit too roughneck for yer sensitive tastebuds! Ha ha!"

Peach had to fight hard to suppress the very rude response forming in her mind. But she knew getting rash would be of no help now. Instead, she replied with, "Thank you for considering my feelings, but I assure you, my tastebuds will be quite alright fending for themselves."

"Alright, fine, alright," he said as she took a deep, healing sip of water. It may not have been filtered and chilled to perfection like the water at her own palace, but it quenched the desolate thirst just the same. Maybe even better...

"Now then, you'd best get yer butt back to work!" he shouted, loud enough for all the other koopas to hear, as he shut off the water. Then he lowered his voice and directed back at her alone. "Listen, I don't normally get a chance to do this, but since yer such a good listener, let me keep talkin' smack about the Boss's awful design plans to you while ya do yer work."

Peach again pushed aside a stray lock of sweaty hair from her face, savored the fading sensation of refreshing water sliding down her throat, and politely nodded. It certainly wasn't how she would have preferred to spend her time here, but there still existed the prospect of gleaning more nuggets of information about her situation through subtle clues someone like Sledge might accidentally drop.

And onward he prattled as Peach scooped up a handful of the sludge at her feet. He talked at length regarding the unstable nature of sand as she squished and squelched the goop into shape. He rambled over the necessities of laying down a level and weighted foundation as she tried to shove the blob into the mouth of an infernally hot oven without losing its shape. And he droned about how sand bricks weren't built to last or withstand the elements as she recoiled in pain from making skin contact with the side of the oven. And he questioned the intentions of his Boss as Peach struggled to lift and toss said bricks into the wooden cart.

It took Peach and four additional koopas to push the cart up the sand ramps toward the build site. More than once along the way, Peach lost her footing and ended up planting her face in the ground. Sledge didn't even notice at this point, and just kept babbling the entire way up, offering no assistance despite being clearly stronger than anyone else pushing the cart. By the time they finally reached the top, her hair was a completely tangled and frizzed-out mess, she'd gotten sand in her shell and it was chafing around the undergarments, and her mouth had once again become its own personal sunbaked desert.

She collapsed at the summit, foregoing all of her regal training in maintaining presence and image for just a moment to recoup some of the energy she'd lost. The other koopas just frowned down upon her and shook their heads disdainfully. Apparently physical strength was the only personality trait that counted for any measure of worth around these parts.

And as she lay there, eyes closed and feeling like she was nothing less than dying, she heard the sounds of koopa footsteps on the sand suddenly speed up, then stop. And those sounds were replaced by a steady rhythm of much bigger footsteps, approaching from downstairs. She didn't even bother getting up to look; she could already tell who it was. Lying down simply felt like the more productive option, anyway.

"Sledge, you'd better have an explanation for this…" Morton's gravelly voice bellowed as he took center stage.

"...for what, Boss?"

Morton apparently held something up that made a flapping sound, but Peach kept her eyes shut and couldn't see what it was.

"Oh, that…" Sledge said, somewhat remorsefully. "Well, ehm...that's why."

She could hear, based on the pauses of other tiny mannerisms of his voice, that he was gesturing, probably down to her. She was, after all, the center of attention here.

"Why the shell?" Morton asked, rather flatly.

Yep, definitely pointing at her.

"'cause it's dangerous up here?" Sledge replied, probably with his hands apart. "You wanted to put her on the crew, so I geared her up for the job, just like any good foreman should!"

"I didn't send her up here as an employee!" Morton growled, apparently tossing the thing in his hands to the ground with an oddly familiar "flump" sound. "I sent her up here as a prisoner and a punishment! You should have made her keep the dress on, make life a living misery for her!"

"What, like that's hard?" Sledge shot back, testily. "Look at her, she can't even move! Is she even alive down there?"

"She'd better be!" Morton seethed with a stomp of his foot. Not only did the resulting tremor rattle her very muscles against her bones, but she was sure she heard sand shifting somewhere around them as well. It might be wise to stay sharp...

"Alive, but miserable," Morton continued, probably narrowly concentrated on Sledge's face now. "You pickin' up what I'm puttin' down? The plan's already royally screwed up as it is, but the Big Guy said it'll all be fine so long as You-Know-Who doesn't show up."

The Big Guy? You-Know-Who? She had to laugh a little bit at that. Were they avoiding names in case she was still listening, or did they really use codenames like that in regular conversation? Was codebreaking going to be required for a Princess to get her hands on a little juicy gossip?

"So what, then?" Sledge said, through clenched teeth probably. "We just gonna keep chippin' away at her, makin' her feel more and more useless, bit by tiny little bit, until one day she wakes up and realized she's finally lost her zeal for life and has become nothin' more than another mindless construction zombie with no hopes or dreams or color left in her cheeks?"

...wow, where on earth was he going with that one?

"...where on earth are you going with that one?" Morton asked, with an imagined narrow-eyed glare.

There was a pause filled with the sound of an ellipsis, as if Sledge were try to form words while unsteadily holding up one finger pointed toward Morton. He seemed to be struggling with it though. No...you can do it, Sledge. Go on, tell your boss just how much you told me. Tell him about how much you despise your working conditions. Tell him that you know how he can improve on his building strategies. Show him what he's refused to see in your work all this time, and make him understand how valuable you are to him!

"If you've got nothing to say, then get back to work!" Morton said with a commanding wave, she guessed.

Don't let him walk away, Sledge!

There was one last deep breath pause before Sledge finally exhaled with a dejected "Fffffffhhhhuhhhhhhhhh…" sound. She heard Morton's footsteps turn away and begin their descent back down toward central tower, and the sound of Sledge's hammer falling lifelessly into the sand beside her.

...no.

"Morton!"

He stopped in his tracks, then turned around, very slowly, very deliberately. He watched Peach open her eyes, and with a great, struggling effort, push herself up to her hands and knees.

"Oh good, you aren't dead after all," he said, unimpressed. "What do you want?"

She took a deep breath and licked the sweat from her lips, putting extra effort into keeping her head up, and double extra effort into channeling her Princess aura. "Morton, I think you really ought to hear your Head Construction Foreman out."

Morton frowned and again cast his glare over at Sledge. "You got something more to say, or what?"

Sledge froze for a moment, then looked down at Peach, hunched down on all fours, arms shaking with the simple effort of even holding herself up. And then she turned her head, a twisted tangle of straggled hair on top and wet smudge marks down the sides, and she looked up directly into his eyes.

And in that one moment, in that single shared glance, he could see everything. A flicker of hope. A gleam of faith. And a sparkle of genuine, real belief. Belief in HIM. Reflected in her eyes, there was a belief that shone through and said yes, he COULD. He could do it. He could do anything. Not only that he could, but he SHOULD.

He blinked.

He nodded.

He picked up his hammer.

"Morton," he said, using the name instead of 'Boss' for possibly the very first time, "You need to listen to me, and I want you to listen good."

Deep inside, Peach smiled...

"We can't build this tower, Morton," he said, taking a step forward to make unflinching eye contact. "The foundation's unstable, the bricks are flimsy, the weight's too much to support for that kind of height, it'll fall within a week if another flyin' Princess doesn't crash into it before then, the bricks don't stick together well, the carts are useless on the sand, the drinkin' water ain't filtered, the sun's gonna give us all a heat stroke, the people are all run ragged day in and day out, their dreams are all smashed and broken, and their hope for any kind of a better life out here's all dried up just like every single thing else in this hopeless, forsaken desert!"

There was an almost imperceptible change in Morton's face as a single muscle turned his frown into something more like a snarl, and Peach could see a new redness forming behind his eyes, like a boiling pool of lava waiting to burst forth.

"...any MORE complaints?"

Sledge's grip on the hammer tightened. "No complaints...just an order."

Morton's eye twitched.

"Everybody, go home!" he announced to the koopa throngs behind them. "Take the rest of the day off. That is an ORDER!"

For a moment, nobody dared to move. They all just stared back at him, then turned expectantly to Morton, who just glowered silently back. With no response, a few of the braver ones decided to scuttle off, taking side paths and stairways down and around the Boss. And eventually the rest of the crowd started following suit. A few even hung around nearby to watch the ensuing showdown.

And exhausted as she was, Peach was at least glad for the front-row seat she had.

"Why are you turning on me, Sledge?" Morton asked, amazingly still not erupted yet. "Haven't I given you everything you've got now? Your job, your work force, even your own hammer?"

"This hammer don't mean nothin'!" Sledge shouted, tossing it to the ground. "You told us it was some kinda symbol of authority that made you an important sorta somebody around here, but that's all a crock, ain't it! Ain't nothin' more than just a symbol of who ya take yer orders from!"

"That's what authority IS, you dunce!" Morton roared back, gripping his own with both hands. "Guess I need to remind you of who's REALLY in charge here, don't I?!"

And without warning, he leapt into the air, smashing down with a thunderous fury that rocked the entire tower. Sledge had rolled off to one side and now stood ready, suddenly wishing he hadn't been so bold about his earlier hammer-dropping symbolism. He eyed it in its place on the floor, but Morton stepped in the way and launched into a brutal series of strikes.

As he dodged each one, Peach cheered out from among the hammer-inflicted tremors, "You can do it, Sledge! Make him see how great you really are!"

He drew on Peach's energy, feeding into each movement with the encouragement she gave him. Somewhere inside, he felt like he hadn't earned her praise, that he didn't even deserve it after the way he'd treated her, but none of that seemed to matter to her. Even though it was all unmerited, unrequired, and did nothing to balance out the hardship Peach had been through today...it was feeding his desire to win this fight, a fight that she needed him to win for her. He could do nothing but accept this gift she was giving and put it to its best use. For the both of them.

With a fake step left, then a roll to the right, he pounced on his hammer, snatched it up, and began swinging back. Steel clanged, sparks flew, and dust billowed in the air around them. And the quaking only got worse.

Peach had taken a definite interest now in the undeniable fact that the tower was, just as Sledge had predicted, not going to hold up much longer at this rate. She decided that whether or not it was a noble thing to abandon Sledge at this point in his conflict, now might be a perfect time to focus on escaping before something inevitably crushed them all.

She'd already been toying with a makeshift plan ever since Morton stepped onto the scene, but it was still missing a certain something...and she couldn't help but feel like she herself was still missing a certain something as well.

She cast her eyes around the scene, looking for the missing ingredient. Morton's massive hammer that almost glowed with a magical essence to it? The cracks developing in the walls? Her pink dress that Morton had dropped to the ground earlier? The position of the sun in the--

Wait.

Her eyes snapped back toward her dress. It was wrinkled and folded and all wrong, and now reprehensibly dirty with sand, but it was still intact. She'd almost forgotten she was still wearing virtually nothing but a turtle shell at the moment. Hard to concentrate with the deafening clash of metal against metal ringing in her ears...

Morton was swinging with almost blind fury now, patience thinning with each block and each dodge that Sledge gave him. And each tremor they produced yielded another crack in the tower walls. A chunk of sandstone became dislodged and fell from the ceiling, landing hard against Peach's shell. She was both surprised and impressed by the fact that it had taken no damage.

And in that moment, all of the pieces fit together. Yes.

With all she could muster up inside, she pushed herself up to her feet, snatched up her pink dress from the ground, and stood against the wall, in line with the combatants.

"Excuse me, Morton!"

He parried an incoming blow from Sledge and whipped his head around, glaring fiercely back at her.

"I know you've taken great pride in your ability to be very frugal with your resources," she said, immediately doubting this plan was any good anymore, "But I must agree with Sledge on this one. This tower is made of a very weak building material, and will not hold up in the long run!"

"Shut up, Princess!" he snarled back, shoving Sledge away. "It isn't like you to insult someone's intelligence like that!"

"I would never insult you, Morton," she said, now wishing politeness didn't take so long to articulate. "But in the interest of personal and proprietary safety, I must insist that I'm being quite factual when I say this tower will fall in a matter of moments!"

"I've had it up to HERE with your sass!" Morton shouted, raising his hammer. "So much for keeping you unharmed, I guess!"

...now!

As the blow swung overhead, Peach dove forward, right past him, dodging as the hammer smashed an enormous new hole into the sandstone wall behind her, harsh glaring sunlight punching back through at him.

"Sledge!" she shouted, pointing to the hole before pulling her limbs inside of her shell.

As if by magic, he understood completely and took a mighty golf swing with his hammer, knocking her, shell and all, clear through the hole and watching her sail into the light before vanishing completely.

And he would have rushed forward to see what became of her after that, but, just as he'd been harping on and on about for weeks, the tower came crashing down in massive sandstone chunks on top of them.

As soon as Peach felt the terrifying, stomach-flipping sensation of being airborne again, she thrust her hands out of her shell and held the dress out overhead, allowing the wind to catch inside the bustle framework and fill out its form to blossom into a puffy makeshift parachute. She drifted down gently, aiming for the sand pit below.

Within moments, she'd safely landed just in front of the furnace and scrambled to her feet again. She zipped past a pair of bewildered koopas on a beeline for the enormous water pipe jutting out of the mountain.

And without so much as a wave goodbye, she hoisted herself up and inside it, crawling carefully forward into a dangerous, dark, and uncomfortably wet new freedom.


End file.
